Tuesday, August 23, 2011

This weekend is the last weekend before Hari Raya, which means it's the last weekend for Bazaar Ramadan. We compiled a list of popular Ramadan Bazaars, go hit on the Ayam Percik, Nasi Dagang, Murtabak, Popiah Basah, Roti Jala before you have to wait another year before you could see such glorious food!

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

While strolling through Tesco to perform Grocery shopping, I always wonder if the Promotion is really a steal, or did the price went up or gone down for a specific item. For a newbie shopper like me, I don’t know anything about the prices, and I wanted to know if I could be a smart shopper like the "Aunties", by leveraging on technology.

Bear with us as we quietly launch the service about 2 months ago, having archived over 1000+ items; do feel free to use the platform, contribute prices if possible, and give feedbacks if you feel there are rooms for improvement (we have a whole list of work in progress).

MMW Map was built at a time where Google Map doesn’t have a map of Malaysia (only Satellite Images), finding places or POIs around Malaysia is difficult and we wanted to become like Wikimapia.

As times goes by, it had been difficult for us to handle the large volume of increasing and rapid changing POIs. Sad to say that we have limited resources in hand, thus it is difficult for us to bring MMW Map to the next level (it had been orphaned without supervision for quite a while now). We have plan to morph MMW Map into MMW Places, where we focus on specific POIs like Post Office, ATMs, Petrol Station so that we can keep track of useful things around us rather than keeping track of everything (which Google Maps seems to do a reasonably good job nowadays). Sadly, other projects have taken precedence.

Until further notice: Goodbye MMW Map, you had served well.

PS: we shall keep MMW Map in passive mode for a few months before taking it offline.

Wednesday, August 03, 2011

Most of us know that our education system is “broken” (Even the US Education system is failing: Waiting for Superman), yet we are not sure of the better alternatives. Should we send our kids to Montessori School? Is International School really better? How about school for special kids? Is there transparency in the teaching methods and programs? How about project-based learning? Can we change the education paradigm (which doesn’t fit the needs and style of today’s children) according to Sir Ken Robinson’s analysis? All of us wanted a change, but we don’t know where to start.

I stumbled upon an article talking about DonorChoose, where teachers post small projects which they like to do with their students, and the public can choose to donate in any amount (minimum is USD 1) in their favorite projects and causes. There might be a class to form a music band, or teaching English to rural children. We can donate to projects in our hometown, or any topics which interest us or matter to us.

I think education is important, but it’s not functioning as I expect it to be. I wanted more open learning, where students are encourage taking on special projects and taking up more hobbies. I wanted them to start a rock band, kick start a small business, build a game, help the community, create arts, active in sports, etc.

Though I don’t have the education background (I did teach computer class to children for 4 years, where I felt my contribution and impact is extremely limited), but I believe there are people out there with more passion and capability than I am as a teacher.

I (or rather Malaysia Most Wanted) would like to contribute in terms of technological skills to develop something like DonorChoose, where we can get people passionate about education and start doing something about it. I can’t do this alone, as a great piece of software without passionate people driving it would be utterly useless.

If you have an idea, with passion and time to improve the education of children in Malaysia, and you need a collaboration platform (like DonorChoose) to spread your idea and gather support: contact us, as we would like to help.